Patient bites hospital security guard

Healthcare Security Weekly, March 3, 2008

A woman who felt she wasn't getting prompt care at a Milwaukee hospital attacked a security guard, biting him in the head and spitting in his mouth.

Police arrested the 30-year-old patient at St. Joseph's Hospital where she had been brought by ambulance to the facility's emergency department February 23. The hospital's security director Jeff Mehring told the Associated Press the woman was agitated before she arrived at the hospital and she became more aggressive in the facility.

The woman verbally threatened nurses, then continued to verbally harass security officers when they were called in to help, news reports said. The woman faces felony battery charges for biting one of the officers.

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